Kentucky lethal injection protocol vague, experts say

Kentucky's proposed lethal injection procedures, while full of minute detail,are vague and unnecessarily secretive about some critical parts of anexecution, according to experts familiar with similar policies in otherstates.

The state's protocol for carrying out an execution outlines the last days andhours of an inmate's life leading up to execution by lethal injection orelectrocution, and the document in some places goes into detail about medicalcare or preparation.

But the protocol glosses over some areas and omits details in others,particularly when it comes to the insertion of the intravenous device thatwill deliver the deadly drugs, say three attorneys and a doctor who reviewedKentucky's proposal.

"It's very vague," said death penalty expert Deborah Denno, a professor at the Fordham University School of Law. "There's very little transparency."

The proposed protocol will be discussed at a public hearing in FrankfortFriday, the first time the state has allowed public comment on the executionmethod.

It comes a month after the Kentucky Supreme Court ordered all executionshalted because the state skipped hearings on the administrative regulationsthat make up the protocol. The state released the protocol publicly days afterthe ruling.

Kentucky Justice Cabinet spokeswoman Jennifer Brislin said the state willconsider all comments and issue a report detailing what changes it did or didnot make, and why, by Feb. 15.

Ultimately, Gov. Steve Beshear will have to sign off on the protocol beforeexecutions can resume.

The protocol can be very specific, including details such as the wardenordering a backup IV being used on an inmate if he's still conscious 60seconds after the administration of the first drug. It also specifies that thedrugs in a lethal injection mixture have 10 minutes to take effect beforeanother dose is administered.

But it's the lack of transparency about the insertion of the IV lines - thepart of the execution process that has become problematic in other states -that has drawn the most attention from critics of Kentucky's method.

State law and the protocol require that witnesses be present for executions -multiple members of the news media, including The Associated Press, members of the victim's family and witnesses for the condemned.

Unlike other states, such as California, Kentucky keeps the condemned inmatehidden from witnesses behind closed curtains until the IV lines are insertedand he or she is strapped to a gurney. If something were to go wrong, therewould be no independent way of knowing it.

Ohio unsuccessfully tried to execute 53-year-old Romell Broom last year.Broom, who was convicted of kidnapping, raping and killing a 14-year-old girlin 1984, complained in an affidavit after the execution attempt that hisexecutioners painfully hit muscle and bone during as many as 18 attempts toreach a vein.

During Kentucky's first lethal injection execution, of Eddie Lee Harper in1999, court records show it took at least two attempts to properly insert anIV.

"Viewing that process is perhaps the most crucial aspect of determining if anexecution has gone awry," said public defender David Barron, who representsmultiple Kentucky death row inmates. "Seemingly they do not want the public oranybody else to see what is actually taking place until they're at the pointwhere they believe there is no problem left."

Other states, such as California and Ohio, are trying to make the processsafer and more open, Denno said. Kentucky's protocol seems to stick close towhat has been done before, she said.

"It doesn't seem to try to change in the way other states are at least trying to change," Denno said.